As it was in the Beginning ---The original Sebright Club was founded by Sir John Sebright 200 years ago, several years after he started work on the development of the bird. It was the first of its kind, as were the private members’ shows, held annually, first in a public house in Brick Lane, London and then in the Gray’s Inn Coffee House at 22 High Holborn. The latter closed in 1865 and thrives now as the Cittie of Yorke. Coffee was introduced to Britain in the mid 17th century and became the fashionable drink. Many coffee shops were the offshoots of taverns and sold beer and wine too. The front bar is panelled, dark and comfortable. The cellar bar forms the brick foundations of the much older building. The bar to the rear is both fascinating and unique. In a great church-like hall, under a high pitched roof, a long bar counter sits below large oak vats. These are dwarfed by massive wine vats near the entrance, said to hold 1000 gallons each. On the opposite wall is a series of small cubicles, like confessionals, where it's easy to imagine lawyers in confidential conversation with their clients. Another unique feature is an ingenious triangular stove (c.1815) which stands in the centre of the bar. It has no visible chimney, the smoke is ducted away below the floor.

The annual subscription was two guineas for the Golden and two guineas for the Silver, which formed the prize money at the Show. Each bird had to be the bona-fide property of the exhibitor bred by him and under one year old; and the stock was compared that each member had bred in that year and each exhibit had to be offered for sale, but the breeder was allowed to buy back his own stock if he so wished. It was the custom to admit strangers to The Sebright Bantam Club, on application, after the award of the Judges, but the Club was essentially private and all members had to be proposed and seconded by a member, and afterwards balloted for.

Harrison Weir whose work ‘Our Poultry’, published in 1902, thought that laced fowls of both Silver and Gold existed in the country well before 1800 (when Sir John Sebright began his work) and some confusion existed between the breed names. For example the breeds we now know as “Hamburghs” and “Polish” were both commonly called “Polish” at various times in those early days. This leads to the possibility that the birds recorded as playing a major part in the formation of the Sebright were in fact some kind of Hamburgh rather than Polish, or perhaps even a cross between the two. The Hamburgh comb and leg colour make it a more probable ancestor than the Polish with its peculiar comb, skull and crest. Moreover the Hamburgh has white earlobes which were so sought after by the earliest Sebright breeders.

Mr Weir wrote about Sir John obtaining a buff-coloured hen at Norwich. She was very small with clear, slate-blue legs (almost certainly a Nankin). He also bought a cockerel destitute of sickles and possessing hen feathered hackles from Norwich. Ian Kay in his excellent article published in the Smallholder (2007) mentions a Gold Pencilled hen that was bought from Watford at the same time.‘Our Poultry’ goes on to say that it took a further 20 years for Sir John to obtain the gold laced feather that he was seeking. He later had a white cockerel from the Zoological Gardens, by which he made Silvers. Mr Weir thought it difficult to eliminate the Polish top-knot and mentions that his brother was presented with a pair of Sebrights in the early 1830s which were more inclined to spangling than lacing. Furthermore they showed no sign of a crest, nor did it appear in any chicks bred from them. Although the facts were never precisely recorded at the time the author seems to have reached the conclusion that the true Polish played no part in the production of the Sebright.Mr Weir was present at the first open Live Poultry Show, held at the Zoological Society’s Gardens, Regents Park, London in 1847 – just a year after Sir John Sebright died.

The following excerpts are taken from the late Ian Kay’s article published in the Smallholder magazine:

‘I have often wondered why it took the group forty years to develop the birds before they were shown to the general fanciers and an article by the Reverend Saul Dixon in 1848 says that the final product was imported from the far East, other people both here and in the USA were quick to endorse this statement, in fact a Mrs Williams goes so far as to give the name of the importer. I think that there may be a little innocent truth in these claims because Sir John also mentions getting a male bird from a Zoological gardens without declaring where it had originated before having been put on display, so obviously it could have been imported from possibly Japan and carried some form of lacing without the crest of the Polish, which has often been suggested as being the breed from where he obtained the perfect lacing.

The breed of Japanese was originally called the Chabo and was imported into Japan from either Southern China or the Singapore area, and some of the earlier reports do mention a laced colouring as well as the Greys and Black tailed Whites etc. It does not really matter where they obtained the finishing touches to the breed, what was achieved is unique in that not only are the body feathers laced but also the main tail feathers. Silver Laced Polish have this feature that could be a pointer to them being part of the Sebrights origin.

Several unique featuresThere are several features about Sebrights that are different to most other breeds, whether they were deliberately included in the first vision of the breed or were included as they occurred in the breed's development we will probably never know. One point is that the male birds do not have long flowing side hangers and sickle feathers and are known as being "Hen feathered"; this presumably came from the Campine blood, rather than Henny Game Fowl that also have this feature. This lack of sickle feather in the cock bird was blamed for the breed's reputations being poor on fertility; consequently a small amount of extended feather in the sickles became more acceptable than previously condoned.

Until more recent times Sebrights had a mulberry colouring to their combs and faces, this has gradually faded away, especially in the male birds and again it is reluctantly becoming half acceptable, but if one appears with a dark colouring it is immediately proudly shown as being the old fashioned original colour. This Mulberry colouring has often been assumed to come from the introduction of Silkie blood, which are the only breed with such a colouring, however, I have another theory, certain strains of Old English Game Fowl, in both Brown Red and self Blacks, even at the present time have what is usually called "Gypsy Faces" and I would guess that some of the Black Bantams used in the breeds early origin had this feature and it has been recurring ever since, especially in the females.

In most of the old books it is thought that the lacing on a Sebright came directly from Polish blood, but other writers dispute this by saying that you have never seen a Sebright show any sign of a crest, nor have I ever seen one with five toes, which again casts doubt on the Silkie blood being involved, but during the 1940s it was not uncommon to hatch a Sebright that was rumpless, a feature almost proving that the Manx Bantam had at one time been involved, it was also quite usual to hatch a few chicks with single combs that was only to be expected with all the different birds that had been introduced into the breed. Another feature that is always shown in the early paintings of Sebrights is their "Fan Tail" that was fully spread and showing the correct lacing to each feather. This point is hard to achieve and many of today’s birds do not have a fully spread tail. Maybe it is not too serious a fault providing that they are good in other features and they still look very attractive and acceptable.

During the period some sixty years since, great emphasis was placed on the feather shape, especially on the females. This is described in the standard as being "Almond Shaped" and birds with body feathers ending in a point were frowned upon as were the ones where the feathers were "Square Ended". The thickness of lacing around the feather has always been debated with a narrow width being the correct one, but if the lacing was slightly wider the appearance could be more striking and these birds often proved successful at the summer agricultural shows where the sunshine had tended to fade the original colour on the fine laced birds. The ground colour in Silvers never seems to be a problem, but in Golds it can be. A debate on the correct depth of colour has been discussed for close on a hundred years with writers expressing concern that they were getting too light in colour. I know that during the 1940s if you did not have a good depth of colour you might as well leave your birds at home and save the entry fee, as they would not win anything. Another very important feature was with birds having a pale shaft to their feathers. I know that the standard says that shaftiness is undesirable, but in my young days it was unacceptable and certainly the birds look better if the feather is one even colour without the distraction of a pale coloured shaft.

To close with I will say that no other breed of poultry has ever been so frequently painted and in almost all cases shown to the originators concept of perfection, may this type continue to be bred and exhibited for many more centuries.’